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Sunday was Mr. Cake’s birthday. And for Mr. Cake’s birthday, we made unhealthy cake.

I know what you’re thinking .. “Omg but you just did a poor review of a government diet! And you could’ve done reduced-sugar this and organic that and replaced some of that butter with <blank> and used this ‘lighter’ ganache recipe and ..”

And I know that. But Mr. Cake doesn’t like that, and I’m not going to force him to eat it.

Also, it’s his birthday. It’s not like he’s going in for heart disease surgery or anything (in fact, Mr. Cake is a whopping 5’7″ and 133lbs. Even I’ve got 1/2″ and 4lbs on him 🙂 ).

I believe in eating in moderation, and moderation means birthdays! Woo!

(And Valentine’s, apparently, because I made a cakey thing for that too. Whoops).

I also believe in people doing what they want, to an extent. Mr. Cake stands 8 hours a day and walks 45 minutes a day. I’d say that’s enough. I like a half hour run and lifting weights about 10 mins a day. It’s no excuse, but as long as you’ve made a good habit of something, one ‘off’ day every few months isn’t going to ruin anything. In fact, I just recently had a week off of ‘dieting’ (I use the term loosely because I was eating at my caloric maintenance, right now I’m slowly losing about 1/2lb a week so my muscle will show). Then again, I subscribe to the bodybuilding ‘hivemind’, which some say is unhealthy, but I say is a-okay if you want to put on muscle and protect your heart while being quite active. There is still a lot of controversy as to whether eating 1g of protein per pound of lean bodymass can cause kidney or liver troubles, but so far I have seen little evidence of it as long as you’re not on a zero-carb diet (which obviously I am not if I am still eating cake once a month, lol).

I also made cookies, because screw it. He likes cookies, I like cookies. Most people like cookies. And believe it or not, I made my own peanut butter for the cookies, too. I recently bought myself a Vitamix just after Christmas and wanted to see if it actually CAN make peanut butter in 1.5 minutes flat. It can. The peanuts I used cost 84 cents for 3 1/2 cups, and made a $3-4 jar’s worth of peanut butter 🙂 (not that it’s going to pay off the $500 blender right away … but I had fun regardless!).

So if it’s ever YOUR birthday and you want to make some Boston Banana Cream Pie, well, here it is 🙂 :

(Sorry for all the smiley-faces in this post! They kind of do that on their own. Creepy!)

Boston Banana Cream Pie:

Cake:

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup milk

2 tbsp butter

Preheat oven to 350*F. Grease and lightly flour a 9″ pan.

Beat eggs for 4 minutes on high. Add sugar, and beat another 4 minutes on high. You want a result that looks almost like soft peaks. Fold mixture into flour and baking powder. I find it’s easiest to use a spatula to do this.

Heat milk and butter in saucepan until butter is melted and milk is scalded. Add to rest of batter, stirring constantly.

Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cake should be golden and ‘spring’ to the touch.

Filling:

1 1/4 cup milk (using a higher fat milk, like whole milk … custards have trouble ‘setting’ with low-fat options, and may get watery as a result)

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 tbsp butter

3/4 tsp vanilla

3 tbsp flour

pinch of salt (1/8 tsp)

2 sliced bananas

Combine sugar, flour, salt, and milk in saucepan.

Cook on medium until bubbling, then for 2 more minutes (I suggest using a whisk so the mixture doesn’t clump).

Temper egg in separate dish and add to pan. Cook for 2 more minutes.

Remove from heat, stirring in butter and vanilla.

Set aside bananas for assembling cake.

To prepare cake: Cut cooled cake in half width-wise (like the photo, you want it to look like a big ‘sandwich’). Spread with half of filling. Top with bananas. Spread with other half of filling (I just flipped the other half of the cake over and spread it on that instead, like a sandwich) and gently replace top. Top with ganache, which I have listed below:

Ganache:

4.5 oz bittersweet chocolate (I used 4:1 mixture Callebaut ‘dark’ and ‘milk’ chocolate chips, but you can use any sort of chocolate as long as it’s not too sweet)

1/2 cup heavy/whipping cream

Place cream in saucepan and gently bring to a boil over medium.

Add chocolate, whisking constantly, until mixture is smooth and glossy.

Remove from heat and let cool until just slightly warm.

You may have extra ganache, depending on how good you are at topping cakes. I had about 1/3 left over. It can be used as a dip for strawberries or pretzel sticks if you don’t want it to go to waste. You can also top doughnuts with it, drizzle it on cheesecake or shortcake, or even ice-cream if you’re more of a gourmand.

Tips: Ganache will adhere better to a chilled cake. I suggest putting your cake in the fridge for 10-15 minutes before pouring on the ganache. You can do this while you are making the ganache.

I use a spatula to help the ganache adhere to the centre of the cake, and then kind of turn it around so it spreads by itself. Any ‘thin’ spots can be covered with extra ganache, as long as it’s still slightly warm.

Ganache will not harden right away (takes about an hour at room temperature, or a few in the fridge). Expect it to ‘set up’ like the topping of a good-quality doughnut. That’s when you can safely cut the cake without making a mess! 🙂

A little while ago, whilst surfing the bodybuilding.com forum (I love that website way too much), I saw someone raving about how they slathered their broccoli in butter, baked it, and that it ended up tasting like popcorn.

“Pffffft.. hah!” I told myself, “That’s impossible!” These starving fitness fanatics are probably just confusing one food for another in a haze of post-workout hunger.

Broccoli tasting like popcorn? Yeah right.

But then I got thinking. Well .. I need better ways to make vegetables. Ways that will make me actually eat them. So I tried to recreate the mythical popcorn broccoli. And boy did it work.

Now, don’t get me wrong, this broccoli is not popcorn. What it is though, is quite mythical in itself. The broccoli wilts slightly and caramelizes. It gets ever-so-slightly crispy on the edges of the crown. It has kind of a sweet, savoury, and buttery thing going on, all while retaining the natural ‘bite’ the broccoli has if you leave a bit of stalk on. If that’s not your thing, you can totally popcorn-ify just the crown if you’d like something that melts in your mouth. Because sometimes, chewing is for chumps (probably why I drink at least one smoothie a day, actually).

Broccoli used to be my second or third favourite vegetable (with salad and brussels sprouts being the winners). Now it is my favourite. And I hope this recipe can do the same for you!

Popcorn Broccoli

2 broccoli crowns, chopped into large, bite-size pieces (broccoli will shrink to about half its size after baking)

2 tbsp butter or oil (I use 1 tbsp of each)

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

dash of onion and garlic powder

Preheat oven to 400*F.

Mix oil and/or melted butter and spices in a bowl, and stir to combine. Add broccoli and toss until evenly coated.

— By the way .. in the back of the photo is pork tenderloin dusted with cinnamon, nutmeg, and white pepper. If you’d like some of that, just cut a tenderloin into 3 pieces, moisten the meat with olive oil (I do this using my hands — just pouring oil on my hands and rubbing the meat, then I wash my hands later), and dust with cinnamon, nutmeg, and white pepper. Then you bake it uncovered at 400*F until it has an internal temperature of 145* (took mine about 20 mins). I like to cover this with a bit of mandarin orange salad dressing. The sweet spices go well with it. Consider this your reward for reading to the very end of my post 😉 you little trooper, you.

I just wanted to make a quick post to say a happy [belated] Valentine’s to everyone and hope you all enjoyed it, single or not!

I made some red velvet banana bread for the occasion. Yes, red velvet banana bread! (It’s not protein powder!) And thought I would share it with you all. Well … to the extent that I can, that is! If I could pass some through the computer screen, I surely would. But seeing as that is not possible (yet!) here it is:

And the beauty of it is how easy the recipe is. Simply take your favourite banana bread recipe, and replace the dry ingredients with red velvet cake mix. Whether homemade or store-bought, that is up to you! Mine consisted of red velvet mix, 3 bananas, 1/3 cup vegetable oil, 3 eggs, and a cup of dark chocolate chips — baked at 350 for about 50 minutes. I always cover my banana bread with foil the last 10 minutes of cooking to make sure the top is cooked through. I also made my own frosting using 1/2 a block of cream cheese, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 2 tbsp of butter, and 1/4 tsp vanilla.